Yes, Gentlemen, Valentine’s Day is coming! Mark your calendar: circle the date, color in the date with three or four different-colored sharpies, draw stars, arrows—tie a string around your finger; buy a Palm Pilot … call the florist on the fourth and not the fourteenth! Remember that awful pit in your stomach last year, right about February 15th, when you knew you had dropped the ball and simultaneously found yourself paying a heavy price? Don’t forget how you said to yourself “I will never do this again.” Well, this is your chance to change your stripes—to make good on past bads. Make it happen this year! I know you can do it.

On the more serious side, Valentine’s Day is a day each year when we strive to show our true affection for those dear to us. Even the coolest character and most unromantic of us must rise to the occasion. The mediums are many: cards, gifts, treats, surprises of various kinds, trips to beautiful restaurants, romantic walks on the beach—and the list goes on and on. Husbands will maniacally (and usually in the 11th hour) search out that perfect bouquet, dress or restaurant to let the lady in their lives know just how important she is; boyfriends and girlfriends will fret over whether they should do more for their significant others—or do less for them (lest they be seen as “too interested”), or simply head for the hills until the whole thing blows over. The little ones have parties at school with those home-made, and incredibly charming, Valentines; little boys and girls will spend hours creating the perfect “I love you” card for Mom and grandma. Magazines abound with articles on how to create the perfect Valentine’s date, couples with young children spend their first night out—at somewhere other than Chili’s or MacDonald’s—in months, and chocolates, roses, way-too-sweet Hallmark cards and other seasonal niceties abound.

Like Christmas, a wedding anniversary or a birthday, Valentine’s Day has become for us a rare day of reconnection and reflection, a day we put aside to remind those in our lives just how important they are to us. It is in our hearts to do this for our spouses, parents, children, brothers and sisters and those vital to us. For most of us it is a given that no matter what gets in our way, we will simply make family time happen for these occasions.

How often, though, do we make reconnection time, reflection time, for our relationship with God? It is in our hearts to show Him, in every way we can, how important He is to us, how central He is in our lives? Is it in “the heart of you” to do this for Him—for yourself? Do we give Him our time and energy on Sundays? And not just the hour or so to show up for Church—but the “quality time” we make for loved ones on Valentine’s Day and other holidays: time to really spend talking with Him, getting to know Him through prayer … time spent thinking about all He has done for us … time to give thanks for every breath we take, for all of the blessings he offers each and every day.

In the end, four or five days a year—be it the coming Valentine’s Day or other popular “family holidays”—aren’t sufficient to express our love and thanksgiving for those in our lives. Husbands need to rejoice over their wives each and every day; parents need to drink in every moment they possibly can with their children—seeing their little ones not as burdens but as true gifts from God … divine mysteries, total miracles. We should be good to our friends, colleagues and fellow parishioners every day, not just on days when we are in a good mood because things happen to be going our way. Even if we are in a bad mood, and things simply aren’t happening for us (and we all have those days), we should make an honest effort with those in our lives. Our behavior during these difficult times, in fact, are the very moments that mark our character. We are all made in the image and likeness of our Lord—we are all worthy of respect and love. In the end, it’s not all about us. And the same goes for our relationship with the Lord. One day, Sunday, is not enough. There is no doubt that our days are busy; we are pulled in dozens of directions each day. Life can be incredibly tiring, exhausting, frustrating; there will be many days where we don’t feel like talking to God, when we feel like we have nothing to offer. But these days are the most important to make it happen anyway—to make time for this relationship, to take a moment wherever we find ourselves to give thanks, to reflect, to read Scripture, to read the Fathers and Mothers of the Church, to make a philanthropic offering, to pray … even if only for a few minutes, a few seconds.

And the Lord is not expecting candy from you—not flowers, a card or even a nice dinner. Don’t bother with the reservations. He doesn’t need these things; He made us; He made everything around us. He’s before time and beyond time. There’s nothing we have that He has not bestowed upon us with love and grace. There’s only one thing that He wants, maybe one thing that He doesn’t have right now. The answer? Your heart. He wants your love. He wants your loyalty and your commitment. The best gift you can give Him is a holy life, lived according to the Gospel and all the things He wants for us. This is the only offering that is pleasing to Him: that one of His precious lambs has come home to Him … one of his sons, one of his daughters, who was lost is now found.

With love in the Lord,

Fr. Alex

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